2012 Estoril MotoGP Race Result: Winner Controls Race From The Front

Submitted by David Emmett on Sun, 2012-05-06 13:08

Result and summary of the MotoGP race at Estoril:

Casey Stoner has taken victory at the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, controlling the race from the front to win a comfortable victory, despite pressure from Jorge Lorenzo throughout the race. Stoner's win at Estoril is his second in a row, both of which came at circuits he has never won at before. With the victory, Stoner takes the lead in the championship by a single point from Jorge Lorenzo.

Stoner had the race under control almost from the first few corners. Dani Pedrosa got the holeshot, but a twitch on the exit of Turn 1 saw him lose two places, with Stoner taking over the lead, and Lorenzo slotting in behind him. The three immediately started to pull a gap, at first in the company of Ben Spies, but the Texan ran wide into Turn 6, losing two places, and more importantly, losing touch with the leaders.

From that point forward, a typical MotoGP unfolded. Three men, at the limit of their machines and their ability, lapped within a few hundredths of each other all race long. Stoner's lead at first looked safe, but as the race approached two-thirds distance, Lorenzo started closing up. But Lorenzo's efforts would be in vain: the Factory Yamaha man was stronger in the final section, but everything he gained in the last sector Stoner took back in the first half of the track. With a couple of laps to go, Stoner pushed hard to break the opposition, and Lorenzo was forced to let him go. Dani Pedrosa, who had followed the leading pair all race long, came home in 3rd.

Behind the leaders, the fight that will be one of the most fascinating this season opened another chapter at Estoril. Monster Tech 3 Yamaha teammates Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow fought over 4th place, with nothing to choose between them. Crutchlow led for the first few laps, but Dovizioso came past in the first corner on lap 5, and the Italian pushed to try to drop his teammate. Crutchlow was not inclined to go along with Dovizioso's plan, and hounded his teammate for most of the race. He got close enough to try to pass at one point, but ran wide at Turn 6 and lost touch. In the end, he could do nothing about Dovizioso, losing out to his Italian teammate for the first time this year.

Alvaro Bautista rode a lonely but strong race to come home in 6th, while behind him Valentino Rossi shook off early challenges by Stefan Bradl to come home in 7th on the factory Ducati. After his eventful early laps, Ben Spies made up ground to finish in 8th - better than Qatar and Jerez, but still nowhere near where he should be - passing Stefan Bradl late in the race and demoting the German to 9th. Hector Barbera rounded out the top 10, putting his Pramac Ducati ahead of the second Factory Ducati of Nicky Hayden, who finished 11th. Aleix Espargaro won the battle of the Aspars, holding off Randy de Puniet to be the first CRT bike.

Stoner's victory means that the Australian has now won at every track on the MotoGP calendar. The Repsol Honda man had just Jerez and Estoril missing from his list of wins at the start of the season, and now he has those to crossed off the list as well. Stoner now leads the championship by just 1 point, 66 points to Lorenzo's 65, and the title chase is turning into a two-horse race between the 2010 and 2011 World Champion.

Comments

Here's a question for those in the know. Listening to the post race interviews both Casey and Dani mentioned how they tried different "mappings" throughout the race to find something that worked. What exactly does this mean? I'm assuming they've got a few different electronics parameters programed into the bike and at the touch of a button can switch from one to another, but I'm really just guessing. Can anyone enlighten me on the what they are referring to when they talk about trying different mappings? p.s. Congrats Casey. Another amazing performance. Same goes for Jorge and Dani. Flawless riding all round.

to my understanding it means the ECI has predefined values to the amount of gas being injected into the engine when you have a given airbox pressure X, air temperature Y and throttle position Z. one set of values (input parameters -> amount of gas being injected) is called a mapping.
Now you can have different amount of gas being injected for the same set of input parameters, they result in different throttle behavior and are stored in different mappings.
The rider can switch between mappings with buttons on the handlebar.

the bottom line of the significance of mappings is how the engine reacts to twists of the right hand.
this change of engine behaviour is meaningless on accelerating on a straight line (where wheely control does it all) but very important at corner apex at maximum lean angle where just a fraction to much drive will highside you.

Great Ride by Stoner he had a few problems through out race which allowed Lorenzo to catch up but changed his riding style and produced the goods to keep Lorenzo in second place. It eas awesome to watch Casey slide Honda around the corners of Estoril.

Frenchie provides a bit of accurate information and people are giving it low ratings? WTF? Is motomatters now also invaded by the spotty 13yo mindset of clicking "you suck" on anything positive about a rider one doesn't fancy?

Good point, Graham. The star rating is something that has done for a number of other websites with forums. You can't really expect the site owner to moderate every single post. Readers who value this website need to be able to police the site themselves and really the only way to do that at present is to restrain oneself from knee-jerk partisan evaluations of posts that present not opinion, but objectively verifiable facts.

Sometimes accepting a mistake and saying i am sorry, also receives a lot of negative votes.. LOL. Does it really matter either way? The blog is a just a medium of communication, and if someone does not like your opinion or comment, YOU should not care about it. And if you DO, then you think twice before you type it in public.

Like watching paint dry. Time was you had a good race cause you made progress. These days in what is a pityful field(no offence CRT) holding your position appears to be a world class performance. Is Jorge not even showing casey a wheel on a factory yam really a brilliant ride. Nope. Great ride by casey the rest just followed home. Rossi half a minute in front of the other dukes. Pats on the backs all round in the shed afterwards except presiozi who looked very much like he'd been ignored. if dorna have any chance to salvage this year they could do worse than swapping Rossi and spies. Good race from Cal as well.

Pats on the back in the Ducati camp for finishing almost 27 seconds behind the leader? That's 27 seconds behind a Honda with severe chatter problems. Finishing 7th is neither here nor there, it's the gap to the leaders that matters. In 2011 Rossi finished fifth, just over 16 seconds behind the leaders, so Ducati have gone backwards big time. Right now neither Rossi or Spies are doing anything to justify a top works ride.

If you are a Stoner fan then it was a master class of consistent lapping, throttle control and managing the gap to your closer rival

If you are a Rossi fan, then it was an improvement and a return to being top Ducati, but nothing else.

If you are a Spies fan, it was another headscratcher - how can a rider be so far off the front on one of the four bikes that are actually capable of winning the race?

If you are a neutral/new to motorcycle racing, then it was 40 minutes of watching bikes ride around a tight and twisty track with less than one overtake a minute and no overtakes after the second corner for the front three. Not something that will attract casual viewers or new sponsorship - which the sport will need to survive.

MotoGP (and this place of late) is becoming more tribal than football. If your preferred rider wins then it's a "great race" and a "masterclass". Otherwise...

Seems to me those statements contradict each other. Anyway, the statements by Pedrosa and Stoner that they have no interest in riding the Ducati would seem to back up the idea that the bike is a career dead end as opposed to anything resembling "a top works ride".

Someone was suggesting that Rossi replace Spies on the Yamaha, one of the top works rides (along with Honda). Seeing that Ducati with Rossi have gone backwards, Rossi is doing nothing to deserve a top works ride at Yamaha. Nothing contradictory about that at all.

David, This race look very similiar to last week---Casey out front, Jorge catching him toward the end, then Casey speeding up the last few laps to win w/ease. Do you have any info about the fuel mapping? Is Casey's electronics turning down the fuel to make sure he has enough to finish the race and then when he 'brain' knows there's enough in the tank, adds some? I have difficulty believing that Casey gets slower in the middle part of the race and then speeds up, unless he's just playing w/the field.

Both Stoner and Pedrosa said they were struggling with chatter, which was worse in the middle of the race. That was why the slowed a little, trying to select a mapping (basically a set of fueling and traction control parameters) that changed the behavior of the bike to stop it from happening. The rear was chattering, which upsets the traction control, as the bike is gripping and then not gripping as it bounces. Chatter got better towards the end, so Stoner pushed on to get a bigger gap.

Even on my tiny decidedly low definition T.V I could clearly see the very significant chatter Stoner was experiencing on the couple of slow-mo's. Yamaha and Lorenzo are going to have to find some answers because they won't see Stoner for dust if and when HRC get this sorted.

Does the chatter upset the TC, or does TC cause the chatter? Chatter at the rear in general, and chatter you can modify with TC settings, doesn't sound like a chassis problem, it sounds like a TC disfunction.

I saw the chatter, too, and I think that is why Stoner stopped sliding the bike over one of the painted sections - because at first it would slide there when on the gas, but later in the race it was chattering quite badly. So he was looking for a map that allowed him to slide (his preferred style) through those corner rather than having to be off the gas and then back on, which would slow him down.
Think of chatter as axle tramp like we used to see in old muscle cars - the rear end tries to apply power and the forces try to make the rear end squat. When this happens the shock damping tries to slow the rate of squat (compression) and of course the spring is acting to try to return the bike to normal ride height. To stop it returning too quickly the rebound damping tries to slow the rate of rise of the shock.
The level of traction available from the tyre also influences this scenario.
What you end up with when the rear end geometry/damping is not right are these forces working in direct conflict, which introduces oscillations into the wheel movement. When the wheel is oscillating up and down this reduces traction and the bike feels like it is shaking itself to bits.
The oscillations in a well set-up bike are relatively far apart, like a low frequency wave. Chatter is when the oscillations are too close together.
It can happen at both the front and rear.

From a technical point of view, chatter is not at the rear, it starts at the front and due to energy transfer moves to the rear instantaneously. So TC might have a big effect on the normal chatter which roots from the front wheel. But a bounce weave coupling, also called rear end chatter might have something to do with TC since it occurs in the accelerating phase. Now, the front end chatter and rear end chatter can only be solved with a better chassis, i.e. frame and swingarm. A portion of the rear end chatter can be controlled by the TC, but not a whole lot.

Yes sir, Think of the motorcycle as a single bar with two supports. a force applied at one end of the bar with support will produce moments and corresponding reaction forces on the other support automatically. There will be change in potential energy of the bar at various instants of time from the time at which the force was applied (transient system). There will also be a change in the energy across the length of the bar due to the force applied. The technique itself is called energy methods.

And why would it move? hmm, think of fixing the bar close to one end and apply a force . Try to count with an atomic clock how fast the energy transferred from one portion to the other.

and TC WILL NOT have any effect on normal chatter. I am sorry, it was a typo.. i forgot to put NOT. :D

With both Tech 3s finishing ahead of him, Spies certainly didn't do anything to erase the now rather large question mark hanging over his Yamaha factory future. He's looking more 'Edwards-ish' all the time, albeit he did win a race last year (almost 2), which is something Edwards never managed to do.

He needs a big turnaround; will be interesting to see if he can pull it off.

There was some hope for excitement via Crutchlow. But after he ran off the track, his chances to attack(and entertain) went as well.

Crutchlow is quickly be coming a fan favorite rider, so when he's too far back or unable to attack, you'll need to grab some smelling salts. None of the other riders are willing to take chances and go for it.

Post race Lorenzo stated: "in the chicane, I wanted to make a move(on Casey) but it was too risky". Oh well, we certainly can't have risk.

I'm not a NASCAR fan, but you can certainly see the appeal(compared to MotoGP and Formula 1) and appreciate the NASCAR "2nd place is 1st loser" racing style. Taking risks, bumping, intimidating and never apologizing is common practice.....

So can Cruthlow pick up where Simoncelli left off and thrill the audience........(and the way it's looking) save the series? Sure hope so. The cameras might as well stay on Crutchlow the whole race, he's probably the only one that will do something exciting and interesting.

Cruthlow did overtake Dovi once or twice so far this season which is not a bad effort, but that's it. He could not do it today and the most 'exiting and interesting' thing he did was to go off track. So much for 'saving the series'. I do recall Stoner going from 9th to 1st in Jerez last week, which wasn't bad either, let say a bit more exciting, because he did overtake almost all work bikes in,let say two laps :).

You reference NASCAR, a sport that uses a giant cage to protect the demolition derby participant. Then you hope that a new rider will take up the entertainment mantle, by using the same never-say-die tactics that ultimately led to Simoncelli's death.

I like ballsy sport, but this isn't ancient Rome, and I don't feel entertained when people die on live TV for no particular reason. Simoncelli wasn't even 'entertaining' people with his passing skills when it happened. He simply fell off and refused to let go.

Personally, I feel that two deaths in two seasons is an indicator that the status quo should be challenged. The GPC continue adding horsepower and weight, which is a marketing strategy used by every 4-wheel series on earth. Motorcycle racers aren't protected by crash boxes, and I wonder if Burgess isn't right to say that smaller power and lighter bikes is a better direction. The lap times would be roughly the same, the top speeds would be similar, but the energy in a rider strike would be a lot less. Marketing, not sport, pushes MotoGP in a different direction.

No, no pun intended. Amazing, how the corporate spin doctors of MotoGP, Ducati and probably PMI made us actually believe that is Rossi finally getting to terms with the Ducati. Yes, it looked like he was more comfortable in the bike - or did I just see what I was being told.

Compare to last year at Estoril - also 3rd race and in dry conditions: almost half the distance to the winner, only 7-8 seconds behind Stoner and battling to the end with a Repsol Honda. Last year, Rossi was .68 off on the fastest race lap, today 1.2 off. And as for Hayden, he went even further backwards losing an additional 6 seconds compared to last year, which was dismal already.

How Ducati can get away with labeling this performance mildly successful is just an indication of the low level of expectation they are at.

Wonder if Moody's observation of Rossi at the press meeting tells a story of a rider being forced to hold back his genuine view of the current situation.

BBC interviewed Jeremy at the end of the GP asking whether the 7th place was a good sign for Ducati and Valentino. His answer was quite simply 'no'. He thought that the slightly better result was mainly due to the characteristics of the track. His expression and body language were not promising, possibly confirming that the situation in the Rossi side of the Ducati paddock is indeed quite tense. Here a decent post with some considerations about this matter:

I completely agree with you. After almost every race since Rossi first rode the Ducati, he says something like this - "We are not where we want to be, but the bike definitely feels better than the last race, and we expect the new parts we will get at the next race will make things a bit better".

Continuously stating that 5th or 6th or 7th place is not where they want to be but things are getting better . . . . They are not getting better, they are maintaining the status quo. Maybe keeping up with the developments of Honda and Yamaha is called "getting better" - to Rossi and Ducati but not to me. I put this comment to Tony Moody. I wish someone would press Rossi about this.

I'm a little confuse about the new engine, there are a lot of different versions going around about it. As far as I can gather the new engine won't be ready until a third or half way through the championship and tomorrow there will be updates to the one they have. Then there are some who say tomorrow there are both electronic and mechanical updates and those who say there are only electronic updates. I really hope Ducati doesn't leave the test without telling what they tested.

Boring is a personal appreciation, something that bores me might excite you. that makes my assertion of it being boring just as correct as yours of it being exiting. Making us both right and certainly neither one of us would be smarter or stupider that the other.
Something that might be worthier of discussion would be the difference between "hunting down" and "following"

today lorenzo had everything to win and he did not. He even did the best lap of the race which proves that the yamaha m1 was up there pace wise. Everyone keep banging on about how lorenzo is better than rossi but not a single pass on stoner while having the best race pace?? Rossi said lorenzo learnt a lot from him and the fact that lorenzo wants him back at yamaha means he still has a lot more to learnt from rossi.

I disagree. I think Lorenzo could still learn some from Rossi. All greats never stop learning. At worst, he could help him with development with the M1 because the way it stands now, that Yamaha/Lorenzo combination has not and will not have an answer for Casey. A challenge for Stoner would certainly be welcomed.

I thought for sure that the Rossi debacle would have settled this - but, one more time, riders do not lead development. The role of the rider in improving the bike is entirely limited to the rider's ability to communicate how the bike is behaving to their crew chief, who decides whether using the adjustable parameters of the bike can solve the problem. If yes - happy rider. If no, the crew chief can request that the factory redevelops a targeted area of the bike to see if they can improve performance.

In addition to this, the factory never stops developing the bike on their side of the fence, using test riders to evaluate any changes. If they deem the change to be positive, the part(s) are then passed on to the factory team to further evaluate. That side of the work is done with no rider/team involvement at all until the parts are handed over.

Agree entirely on the rider learning curve never ending.

I think the only thing that can help Lorenzo at the moment is more power, but that comes with its own set of negatives.

Whilst I agree that the race was perhaps not the most interesting, I believe it can be explained by a number of conditions which forced the race to unfold the way it did. The first part of the equation is that Stoner is fast, accurate and relentless, so when Stoner gets to P1 you'll see him do everything he can to stay there and rightly so, nobody can blame him for that.

Then there's Lorenzo who has to think very, very carefully. Given the consistency, speed and overall competitiveness of Stoner, Lorenzo knows full well that any slight slip, any mistake or any open door will see him sacrifice points to his direct opposition. Last year saw Lorenzo make a mistake at Phillip Island which cost him the mathematical possibility to win the championship and he absolutely cannot afford to do that again and so he's forced to play the safe game, which I'm sure he doesn't really want to do but that's the situation. This situation is further compounded by...

Dani Pedrosa. With Pedrosa threateningly close to Lorenzo during the whole race, a 0.5s mistake by Lorenzo would see an eager Repsol-coloured blur take another four points from him and put him 5 points aside of two Hondas in the championship and that's where wins really start to count.

I'm not saying Lorenzo did the right thing by doing what I perceive as him playing safe but I can certainly understand the reasons for it and that is why I don't believe this race could've happened any other way.

It must be tough for Lorenzo having Stoner win the last 2 races at tracks that have never been his strength. These would have been races that Lorenzo would have been expecting to get a points lead over Stoner (like last year) . There will be some head scratching in the Yamaha camp.

Whether or not Lorenzo is pragmatically viewing these defeats as pawn sacrifices is the question. By all fair measures, Lorenzo should've won at Jerez and Estoril but equally Stoner should've won at Qatar. We're three races into the season and the race results have been the inverse of what I would've bet on.

Why should Lorenzo have won at Jerez and Estoril? This is Stoner on a Honda, not Stoner on a Ducati. I agree that they are two tracks that the Yamaha should be relatively stronger on, but lets not forget that Pedrosa is also normally stronger at these two tracks. Pedrosa had one of his best wins at Estoril last year. The fact that Stoner has won on these two tracks despite arm pump and chatter tells us all we need to know about how the rest of the season is likely to pan out, provided he is not adversely affected by the arm pump that was the only reason he didn't win in Qatar.

Absolutely, I don't disagree. The point I was trying to make, if a little loosely, was that if I'd lined up bets in the pre-season based on historical performance, I would've pegged Lorenzo for Jerez and Estoril. That's all.

Ah yes, the merry-go-round of hard to satisfy MotoGP viewers. So far the racing has been close, certainly we are not seeing Stoner checking out and winning by a huge margin as was the case in 800's many times. I think so far it's an improvement. Still not in the same class as Moto2 racing, so for me, the idea of moving MotoGP to the same rules, I like the idea of.

And the finish in the Moto3 race was totally wild! There was your shout out loud moment. Love watching these little jewels with their cheese-cutter tyres!

Well , as was implied in a post above that Stoner was the only MOTOGP rider to win on all the MOTOGP tracks, then that makes me wonder just what track has Rossi never won on?????? Call me lazy for asking and not researching, but just what track(s) did rossi not win on? Indy? Laguna? or?

It's a personal problem I suppose, but I wish people would not include MOTO2 or MOTO125 or you name it, when talking about wins in MOTOGP. When I hear the name MOTOGP I always think of the upper class NOT some subclass of MOTGP. A win on 125's is NOT equiv to a win on a 500, 800 or liter machine and don't pretend it is, please.

If you include the 125's and 250's or MOTO2 etc, then you might as well include every trail bike win someone has won imho. Yes, I'm a snob in that way. Skill sets are NOT the same.

Bautista is making the Hondas look bad. Go away Bautista. Bradl? I give him a pass since it's his rookie year, but he ain't no Lorenzo or Stoner in comparison to their first years. Spies? I've just now given up on him. Such great promise going into the toilet. It's a crying shame. Maybe a change in crew chiefs? Won't happen but maybe should.

My great claim to fame on the internet? Getting kicked off crashnet for implying Crutchlow might be a Aussie immigrant to Brit isles. Way to go crashnet.

As far as tracks no longer on the calendar, both Rossi and Stoner have won at all of them. Therefore Stoner is ahead as far as the recordbooks are concerned - having won on every track that MotoGP has ever visited (i.e. since the start of the 2003 season).

oh come on at one point he was only 0.1 behind stoner and he himself admitted he should have tried a pass at the chicane then decided against it. Jerez and estoril are normally lorenzo territory i know he won at qatar where stoner is very strong but thats 2 to 1 now and le mans is another place where i don't see him getting close "enough" as the honda is very strong there.